Concrete Angel
by tursi
Summary: First Phantom phic, just try it out. A blind child is the key to Erik's plan of getting Christine back into his life. Raoul has gone off to train for the up coming war, leaving Christine alone in the De'Changy household with her caretaker, Madame giry. EC
1. What's she holding back

Disclaimer: I don't own anyone

I had no Beta reader, so if there are some errors, please don't bite my head off for it, and I promise to have one for the next chapter.

Concrete Angel

Chapter One: No one knows what she's holding back

_**Two years after the Opera House incident**_

_**Christine is married to Raoul, but Raoul had gone off to train and fight in the war, leaving Christine to watch over the De'Changy household. She still wonders about her phantom's whereabouts, but does not know if he is even still alive.**_

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The night was cold and damp with snow that sent chilling shivers through out the body, from the inside out. Cutting through the darkness, the moon shone brightly over the forest casting the shadows from the tree down on the pure white ground, tainting it with its darkness. The eerie quiet was unsettling, and made those use to being surrounded by things that were loud soon found they were nervous and jittery in the awkwardness. The path was long for those who didn't have the money to ride to the resting place for the dead, and those who did walk did so in pairs, for there is safety in numbers. Though on this night, only one girl walked down the road, alone person wise, but she did have a large black dog by her side, to which she held on to as if her last line to the earth. In her other hand, she held a bouquet of dried roses and a small basket filled with something that was hidden from view.

The small girl kept her focus on what was ahead, the dog walked leisurely at her side, not even moving to chaise a squirrel down the road. Nothing seemed to affect this child, not the night, or the cold, or the silence. A soft whimper came from next to her as the dog noticed that they came upon the cemetery, and the girl made a comforting sound to the large dog. She released her grip from his collar and ran her small hand through his thick fur. The beast, as she called him, sat down on the cold ground, and the girl began to walk alone, counting every one of her paces. Forty paces foreword, turn right, seventeen paces, and then turn left and one pace up. That's how she had to remember it; everything was numbers and memories to her. Kneeling down her hand reached out to the cold stone in front of her, running over the familiar engravings.

_Marie Anne O'Mallory_

_Dearest Sister_

Next to the grave, on the right:

_Morgan O'Mallory,_

_Father and Husband_,

to the left:

_Jean O'Mallory,_

_Mother and Wife_.

None of them had dates, or fancy borders, smooth marble, or pictures. They were just stones with small plaques embedded in them. With gentle hands she swept was the petal-less stems of the old flowers and placed down the new pairs of dried roses by each of the graves, then set down the basket. She heard Beast barking loudly, and the wound of wheels creaking, horses neighing and chains jingling. The child froze up, her mind fighting with the date, what was the date? She couldn't remember. Her ears picked up a soft female voice telling the carriage to wait until she returned, and then seemed to mention something about Beast.

The child stood up carefully, leaving her basket for a second, her eyes scanned around but saw nothing but black darkness. The girl turned around quickly to face away from the three graves and clutched her hands to her chest as she heard Beast running over to find her, and the soft patter of light foot steps behind him.

"Where are you leading me to, you silly dog?" The child heard the voice say before she could feel eyes upon her. "Oh..."The woman said softly upon laying eyes on the girl. "Oh dear, what are you doing out here so late Molly?"

The little girl's eyes widened slightly. Now she remembered what day it was. It was the one day in the year when Christine Daae came to visit the Daae tomb; it relatively coincided with Molly's day when she visited her family's graves. Molly said nothing in return, but tilted her head downward.

Christine walked over to Molly knelt down before her, lifting up her chin lightly with two fingers. The child didn't need much persuasion to lift her head, her gaze looked intently right past Christine in a way so odd that there could only be to reasons: Molly couldn't see here, or something stood behind her. Christine first checked behind her shoulder to see nothing but the black figure of Beast sitting at the end of the walk way. Christine waved her hand slightly in front of Molly's eyes, and found no reaction from the small girl. She frowned slightly, no movement of her eyes to even follow the hand. _Is this girl blind? No, she couldn't be, she gets around too well. _Christine thought to herself.

"Molly...you can't just leave the orphanage like that." Christine chided the little child, who looked no older than eight or nine years old. Molly made a sharp gasp and turned her head in the direction of a concrete angel, shaking a bit nervously. Molly could hear something flapping in the wind, but it was something Christine couldn't hear. "Are you listening to me?"

The girl took a step back from the woman, and turned her attention back to Christine. "I-I always listen." She said meekly. Christine now was able to get a good look at Molly as the moon crept out from behind the clouds. The small girl had a full head of red curls that came down to around the middle of her neck, bright green eyes, hazed over as if she was in fog. Her pale skin was dirty from walking in the forest; small scars covered her arms from being misguided and running into things habitually. Her hands bleed slightly from the roses she had carried to the cemetery. Once again her head turned sharply away and toward the stone angel.

"Molly?" Christine sighed and stood up; wondering what had the young girl all jittery. "Molly stay here, I'll take you home after I'm done here." The girl's attention did not shift back to Christine, but she knew the girl had heard her. Christine moved away from the child and started to walk towards the Daae tomb to pay her respects. Beast whimpered a little to see her go, but knew he must stay be his owner. Christine turned around too look back at Molly; she noted that she wasn't looking at the statue, but right past it. _That's odd_ Christine thought and then went on her way.

Molly was left alone again, but she knew she wasn't alone. She could hear Beast padding toward her, his low and quick breathing easy to catch, but off in the distance she could hear another low breathing, slow and soft, ghostly almost, but Molly wouldn't know the comparison, for she has not met any ghosts. A soft flapping sound caught her attention again, she knew that with loss of sight, everything else grew in ability, but sometimes she regretted it.

"Beast, come." She said softly, holding out her hand toward the dog, expecting to feel the top of his head, neck, and then his collar. Molly felt none of that, she only a soft whimpering, which she found odd. Then the flapping sound again, her small mind began to race, but she still held her hand out. Something soft..._leather_...touched her hand, cold soft leather, like father's gloves.

"Molly..." Said a soft dark voice, melodious in ever sense of the word. It was if it was a silent question, he needed just to say, 'do your remember me?'. Molly's small heart quickened its pace, this voice and touch, so much like her fathers. Her mind raced, hating not able to have sight when it was most needed. Then she froze, and there came a small spot of recognition, the voice was too dark to be father, and father was dead, so surely it wasn't...

"No..." The child mustered softly and pulled her hand away gently. "You are not my father..." There was not hint of an Irish accent in her voice to match her glossy Irish eyes. A malicious laugh, soft but evil, came after that, and yet through all this, her loyal dog had not come and helped her out of this odd situation, and with a complete stranger. _Beast, where are you?_ He mind asked.

"That's quite right, little O'Mallory, I am not your father, nor your mother or sister, but you almost couldn't tell could you child?" After her nervousness died down and she regained her calm-ness, the small child reached out and was able to grab hold of the person in front of her. With the easiest of touch, she could tell that it was a evening waist coat, she had touched many before when she'd run into people with what she could hear as easy money targets, those with purses on the outside of the coats or hanging off their arm.

Molly then yelped and flung herself away from the man. "It's you!" She piped. That voice, and touch and attitude, she had heard it once before, and it was the last time Christine Daae hade been here as well, but it never seemed to bother her. In panic she stepped backwards, slipping on some ice, and cried out loud. Before she fell, she could hear loud barking, and a soft voice, and once again the sound of flapping. Then with a crack, everything went silent.


	2. The pain behind the mask

Disclaimer: I don't own anyone

I had no Beta reader, so if there are some errors, please don't bite my head off for it, I wasn't able to find one for this chapter either, everyone I know is on a far off time zone.

Concrete Angel

Chapter Two: The pain behind the mask

_**Two years after the Opera House incident**_

**_Christine is married to Raoul, but Raoul had gone off to train and fight in the war, leaving Christine to watch over the De'Changy household. She still wonders about her phantom's whereabouts, but does not know if he is even still alive._**

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It was a long night, and a long ride back from the cemetery. Erik's plan didn't go, for once, as smoothly as he had suspected. He had just wanted to spook the girl to grab Christine's attention, not actually cause harm to her. In his cool panic, he had scooped up the unconscious girl into his arms and fell back into the shadows before Christine and Beast could find them. From his shadows he watched his angel look around frantically for the girl, seeing that Molly had left her things and seemed to have disappeared. The large dog seemed to sniff around, his nose picking up the trail, Erik had been careful not to leave foot prints, but even a dog could sniff out his path. So he had kidnapped a small orphaned blind child, Erik had no real clue about how to go about this. He mounted Caesar, positioning Molly in his lap, awkwardly, in a way so that she wouldn't fall.

From behind him he could hear frantic barking and whimpering of the large demon of a dog that was this child's protector, so it seemed. Erik was coming very close to being discovered, and he wasn't about to have his plan totally backfire on him quite yet. With a sharp nudge in the ribs, Erik got Caesar into a fast paced canter, whose sounding hooves were dampening in the snow. He could hear Christine's frantic calls fade into the background as they rode into the night. The bumpy ride jostled Molly in her seat, tossing her from side to side and from her pocket fell a small gold necklace with a small round locket on it.

The locket was given by the orphanage saying that it was her mothers at one point in time. She always keeps it with her and rubs her thumb over it like a worry stone when she gets nervous or needs strength. Some of the features on the locket had been worn down from her constant rubbing; all that could be understood on the markings were her mother's initials.

The trip was relatively quite, a few moans and groans from the girl, and the snorting of the horse through labored breath. He brought Caesar back to the stables, exactly as he was before, no one was to know he was still alive, and yet now he had a witness, but the witness did not have sight to confirm it. He picked up the girl and swiftly started to bring her down into the dark damp cellars. The phantom kept his stoic features through out this whole ordeal. Once he had gotten far enough into the cellars for safety he stop and set the girl down gentle so that he may examine her.

Above Molly's eyebrow was a large cut bleeding and a bit nasty, his rush to get them out of there was so overpowering before he had hardly noticed it.

"Damn girl." He muttered and scooped her back up into his arms with ease and started towards the underground lake where he knew a Persian man would be waiting for his return. Erik set the orphan into the gondola and started to push his way across the lake. He couldn't help but hum a dark tune along their crossing, for he was slowly devising a way to capture Christine once more, since her Raoul was away at war, she was vulnerable now.

As he reached the shores of his home, Erik could already see the Persian on his way to meet them, though it he didn't seem too delighted. The boat came to a jerked stop as it hit the shore. Erik hopped out into the shallow water and pulled the boat ashore.

"Erik, What were you out doing?" The Persian asked quite darkly as he helped bring the boat in and looked at the child in the boat. He gave Erik an odd look, and the phantom just replied back with a smirk.

"Bring her out of the boat, Nadir, she needs some medical attention." Erik did a graceful turn, his cloak billowing slightly as he did so and headed towards his room to find something to stop the girl's bleeding head.

"Erik, have you gone mad? You can't bring a child here! What happens when she wakes and sees all this? I thought we said you'd stay low for at least another week." Nadir said as he followed his orders and took the young Irish girl out of the boat and looked for a place to put her.

"She's blind Nadir, she won't be causing us any trouble unless I help her to do it my self." Erik said coming out of his dark room with some bandages and alcohol. He gave Nadir an odd look, wondering why he was still holding the child.

"Nadir, go and place her down on the couch, or do you like to hold small children for so long." Erik said walking over to the 'couch', which an old organ bench with cushions on it. The Persian nodded and went and laid the girl down, who was acting very limp at the moment. The phantom cleaned up the cut, lightly put some alcohol on it, to which made Molly twitch, and then carefully wrapped her head on some bandages.

"What are you going to do with her Erik; I know you wouldn't bring her down her just because you want to play nurse." Nadir said watching the masked man in front of him take care of the girl much like he takes care of his music.

"She is a new part of my plan, I will get Christine to be mine and this girl will lure her to me." Erik said dryly. Nadir wouldn't be able to do much to stop him, since the Persian now realized that the girl was his hostage. Erik hadn't noticed though that Molly had awakened and heard the last part of the plan.

_...and this girl will lure her to me..._ Molly was going to panic; she had been kidnapped by the man she always tried to steal from. She flung herself from the bench and began to wildly try to find her way out. Her hands move around in front of her trying to seek out a path. The two men's voices were drowned out by her panic as she stopped when she came to the edge of a small hanging over the lake. Her head pounded as a delayed reaction from sitting up to quickly, and she felt like a cornered rabbit. Molly took a few steps back from the edge and landed in the arms of one of them, who held her in a tight restraint.

"It would be best, Little O'Mallory, if you didn't try to run. The lake in front of you is filled with the most horrid of creatures that wouldn't mind a sweet little girl for a snack." Came the dark and soothing voice behind her.

"Sir, I'm not scared of you or water." Molly said quite firmly, her hazed over blue eyes moving back and forth beneath her closed eyelids.

"Well then, O'Mallory, I hope you enjoy your swim." Erik then pushed her off the small ledge. The Persian was already up and yelling at Erik who just gave him a devious smirk as Molly splashed into the water.

"Get her a towel, the water's no more then a few inches deep. It was a lesson to teach her not to defy me." Erik said in a grim, but amused manner and strided over to his organ for practice. This would be an interesting experience for Erik, havign to take care of a child as part of his capture plan was not what he had first intended, but it would make things alot more fun.


End file.
